


Burnt

by robotboy



Series: Butterscotch [13]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Deaf Character, F/M, M/M, Sickfic, Summer Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 10:32:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19060864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotboy/pseuds/robotboy
Summary: For the anon prompt: early in their relationship Flint gets a little sick and is all prickly and grumpy all day until Silver comes round that evening and takes care of him.





	Burnt

**Author's Note:**

> A note on the writing: Silver’s ASL is in ‘bad’ English grammar to emphasise his lack of fluency from Flint’s POV, but there’s never meant to be literal translations for the ASL dialogue in Butterscotch.

Flint feels like death.

It’s about the longest day of the year and it feels like the longest day of his life. Three shots of coffee had done nothing to help: Hal had looked at him and told him to go home.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and it feels like getting punched in the hip. He fumbles to get it out, peering at the screen until it comes into focus.

_movie tonight?_

_I’m not well,_ Flint sends a thermometer emoji.  _Can we raincheck?_

 _no problem,_ Silver replies right away.

 _I’m sorry,_ Flint assures him.  _I was looking forward to seeing you_

Which should be ridiculous, because Silver made his coffee not six hours earlier. But they’re like this, now. Seeing each other twice a day. Texting in between. Going to movies and museums and the beach.  _Dating._ Flint hardly recognises himself. Maybe his body is rebelling against it all. But he doesn’t want Silver thinking he’s blowing him off.

He’d have quite liked to be blowing Silver, if his throat wasn’t closing up.

 _i can come over if you’d still like company,_ Silver offers.

Flint’s phone slips out of his hand, and he spends too long fumbling to get it upright. The screen is too bright: the sun is too bright, for that matter.  _You don’t have to. I’m terrible company when I’m sick_

 _i work in the service industry,_ Silver reminds him.  _you are never the worst person i talk to in a day_

Flint snorts at the backhanded flattery.  _If you’re not worried about catching the bug_

_i have the immune system of a horse_

_Horses have terrible immune systems_

_i’ll wing it because i want to see your face_

_I want to see yours too,_ Flint writes.  _I’ll try not to sneeze on it_

 _i’ll visit after work,_ Silver promises.

Flint sends a kiss emoji and gets one back. He stretches across the couch, pulling his shirt away from his chest where the sweat has glued it down. H e thinks about texting Miranda, but there’s also the appeal of not moving a single muscle in his body because even with the flood of warmth from Silver’s messages, he still hurts all over.

He opens her message window, thumbing back through the history while he thinks about what to write. There’s a definite theme in her messages in the last few weeks:

_Get a hobby James_

_Liking your job isn’t the same as having a hobby_

_If you’re not having fun next time I come I’m putting a beehive on your roof_

(for a few days, nothing but bee emojis)

_Make friends James_

_Hal isn’t the only person who knows ASL in your whole city_

_Join a fucking book club_

_Get laid James. Give your dildo a night off_

And then:

_What’s his name?_

_Is he Hearing?_

_Can’t have everything_

_ASK HIM OUT_

And, in May:  _FINALLY_

Flint shakes his head. He’d driven up to Rochester last week, and for the first time, he’d slept on the couch instead of her bed. There’s no way he can imagine explaining it to Silver. He’s had boyfriends before—so has Miranda, for that matter—but never so serious that there’s been any question of sharing a bed with her. And then, a month into this thing with his cute barista, he couldn’t. And Miranda’s pestering had finally stopped.

 _Thank you,_ he types, and sends.

 _You’re welcome,_ Miranda answers quickly.  _What for?_

_You were right._

_I was,_ Miranda replies.  _About what?_

 _The barista,_ Flint writes.  _I’ve got a cold and he’s coming over_

 _A keeper!_ she sends an incomprehensible string of emojis.

Flint can’t figure out exactly when Silver stopped being  _a_ cute barista and started being  _his_ cute barista.

Late in the afternoon, Silver arrives at Flint’s door and greets him by shoving an enormous cup into his hands.

 _From work,_ Silver explains. His ASL is getting smoother, but the grammar is still a mess.  _My recipe._

For a second, Flint just presses the chilly plastic to his cheeks. He considers dumping the contents on his head to cool down, since ascending the stairs back to the lounge sounds like torture. The view of Silver’s ass is good enough to strengthen him. He sips the juice, and is still coughing when they get to the kitchen.

_What_ **_is_ ** _this? Did you put a kilogram of ginger in a blender?_

Silver shrugs in a more-or-less sort of way.

Flint can’t deny his throat is clearer.  _It tastes good._

Silver looks pleased as punch.

 _I’m not wearing hearing aids,_ Flint confesses.  _They get all slimy._

Silver wrinkles his nose in morbid fascination.  _No problem. Good practice._

He presses the back of his hand to Flint’s forehead, and Flint leans into it. Silver tucks a few sweat-clumped tendrils of hair behind Flint’s ear, then plants a kiss on Flint’s forehead. Flint closes his eyes and tries to breathe without sniffling. He sniffles anyway. It’s been a while. Silver is smiling like Flint is the most interesting person in the world, rather than an overheated bag of mucus sustained only by juice.

 _Movie on couch?_ Silver proposes.

 _You choose one,_ Flint says, and shuffles back to the lounge with Silver in tow. Silver finds a spaghetti western in Flint’s Netflix recommendations and cranks the volume up. Flint attempts sitting next to him, but in the first fifteen minutes his head is in Silver’s lap. Silver’s fingers are wonderfully dry as they card through Flint’s hair. He almost drifts off when his leg starts to cramp from being curled so tightly. He must have groaned, because Silver gently lifts his head and shuffles along to settle on the chaise, letting Flint stretch out properly. No sooner has Flint realised that uncurling feels cold, when Silver reaches over to cover him with one of the blankets.

Flint fumbles with his fingers, but he lets Silver watch the movie. How to explain that he never thinks to use the blankets? How to say—without seeming resentful, because he’s not—that he never takes the chaise because Thomas used to favour chaises? It’s not a complaint that Silver is stealing the spot, not at all: it’s that it’s finally getting  _used._

At some point, with everyone he’s dated in the last nine years, it feels like cheating on Thomas, or like a dull reminder of how much better Thomas was. Maybe it’s the fever, but now when Flint thinks of Thomas, it’s not as a long shadow cast over Silver. It’s to ask:  _What do you think of him?_

Flint spent a decade after Thomas with a stubborn insistence on surviving. There was always an overarching purpose, chasing that thrill of  _something, almost there_ when he finds letters in the archives that feel like codes he can’t quite decipher. Silver feels like that, like the thrill. Like there’s something  _more._  But before this spring, nothing made one week different from the last. He had his projects, even if the interesting ones were few and far between.

Then he’d had to think about the four mornings of the week he’d get coffee before work. Eleanor always takes his order, and she’d make it on the days the cute barista wasn’t in. It was always too loud to make conversation, and maybe things would have continued that way, Flint glancing across the towering coffee machine to catch a flash of blue eyes and black curls. Fridays became the last day before Tuesday he’d come in to House of Sticks. So he’d stopped ignoring his sweet tooth and started ordering the butterscotch: making the order take a little longer, taste a little sweeter, to tide him over for the weekend. He counted time backwards for nine years, until one Friday in April he was looking forward to Tuesday.

There’s no way to put all of that in words, so he stares sideways at Lee Van Cleef on the television. Silver’s fingers are still making circles on his scalp, and Flint wonders if maybe the worst of the cold has passed.

The film ends and Flint stretches languorously, until he’s flat on his back and looking up at Silver. Silver offers:  _I call dinner?_

Flint blinks slowly. He can’t remember if he ate lunch. Food sounds amazing. He’s too tired to nod, but he raises his eyebrows enthusiastically.

 _Indian?_ Silver spells.

Flint sighs in delight. Silver has introduced him to a curry house that only takes phone orders, and they’ve had it almost every week they’ve been dating.

Silver gets him vindaloo and garlic naan so strong it tastes faintly of ammonia. Flint’s nose starts running from the first mouthful of curry. It burns out some of the fever. By the end of it he can breathe again, even if his mouth is on fire.

 _Feel better?_ Silver asks, mopping up the last of his aloo gobi.

 _Much better,_ Flint musters a smile. He probably looks like a mess, bright red and leaking, but he feels alive again.

 _Good,_ Silver says.  _Don’t want you still sick on the Fourth._

 _Fourth of July?_ Flint frowns.  _Why?_

 _We can go out,_ Silver explains.  _See fireworks._

He must have looked up  _fireworks._ Flint smiles.  _That’s a nice idea._

Silver beams. Ridiculous, Flint thinks, that Silver gives him more forewarning for Independence Day than he did for his own birthday a month ago. All he’d done was lean over the counter for a kiss before passing Flint the butterscotch latte, and when they’d met up that afternoon he’d brought along box of pie and mentioned it was his birthday. No candles, but Flint had taught him  _happy birthday_ in ASL and they’d had two slices each before admitting defeat. The next day, Flint bought him a leather cuff he’d seen in a shop, hoping it was to Silver’s taste.

Silver has worn it every day since then. He wears it on the Fourth, too.

 _I’ll get better,_ he tells Silver.


End file.
